General ethics

General ethics is moral philosophy as a general system. Aristotelian ethics has been the most enduring, being located at the foundation of Western ethics; Immanuel Kant would later make a profound contribution with his Critique of Pure Reason.

Aristotelianism
Aristotle's fundamental question was that of the "supreme good" or "sovereign good". For Aristotle, man's sovereign good was happiness, or eudaemonia, the perfect fulfillment of human nature. To achieve this, one must discover the meaning of life, as well as what the greater good is. First, Aristotle did not tell his audience what they ought to tend towards happiness, viewing the aspiration toward happiness as simply a fact of nature, existing in man necessarily. This determination of what happiness consists in is the proper task of moral philosophy, but people have a spontaneous and pre-philosophical way of their own. Whether this knowledge is acquired in a practical and spontaneous way or in a speculative and philosophical way, as long as we know what ths supreme good consists in, we also know what to tend towards it. Self-evident to us in "intuitive reason", one must do good and avoid evil. The concept of the supreme good was as essential for Aristotle as it was for his predecessors, Socrates and Plato. Aristotle identified the sovereign good with happiness, but the good is not eclipsed by happiness. The good remains the good, having its own meaning, although it might be identified with happiness. In his ethics as in his metaphysics and cosmology, Aristotle attributes a major role to finality, arguing that all things are suspended from the first cause.

The first question for moral philosophy is the question of the sovereign good, which was a classic theme in Western philosophy until Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in 1788. In contrast to Plato, the ethics of eudaemonia steps down from the heights on which it was located in Platonic morality. For Aristotle, the happiness of humans is eudaemonia, a terrestrial happiness. Also in contrast to Socrates, he also believed that the concept of virtue did not immediately lead to happiness.

Happiness is composed of wisdom, virtue, and pleasure. Wisdom is most important; it is an activity of compose and fruition, and contemplation is held to be superior to action. In second place comes virtue, with virtue being a full accomplishment of human nature. Pleasure is a bonus, but exists as a necessary result. Pleasure is added to an act as bloom is added to youth; a man cannot live without a certain measure of joy, and pleasure is the natural recompense of a virtuous life. These three sorts of good exist in the soul, while types of good outside of the soul include friendship (no man is happy without friends), material goods (seeing no virtue in poverty), and chance. Since pleasure occupies the third rank, Aristotle's views on happiness are not hedonistic. On the other hand, it is inherently humanistic, as pleasure is still a part of the hierarchy.

Aristotle emphasized the importance of values, with virtue holding a central place in his ethics. His theory of values or virtue stated that virtue was a hexis (habit). He makes virtue a mean between an excess and a deficiency. Thomas Aquinas believed that Aristotle discovered the right ideology, but that it still had difficulties and remained imperfect. Happiness was first identified with virtue, but later separated from it.

Freedom of the moral universe is indispensable for morality, and it is found upon the natural universe. The moral philosopher has to know that there is a human nature, of what pertains to spirit and to reason and in man, and that spirit and reason are superior to what is irrational in man's passions. Free will and freedom of choice must also be known. The idea of freedom of choice emphasized by Aristotle was a question which caused his teacher Plato serious difficulties; Plato supported freedom, but there was debate about freedom and its relation to virtue.